The Ending of Things
by Jody Barsch
Summary: In the wake of Graham moving out Patty has sunk into depression, Danielle has completely withdrawn from the world, and Angela is left alone to function and keep things afloat. The absence of any parental oversight allows Jordan an in to get closer, but how will Angela cope when the only one paying attention is her? ... [On pause NOT abandoned.]
1. Patty

_**Disclaimer: I do NOT believe this as a storyline, I in fact have spent years arguing against this, but, according to a talk Winnie Holzman gave at UC Berkley, she**_** did s****_ee this in the characters' futures, so this is me playing at what that might have looked like. Though again, I still do NOT think this is where MSCL_****_ was heading. _****[**_If you want to read an account of the talk you can visit mscl com forum, go to "The Afterlife of Cast and Crew" go to "Winnie Holzman" and open the "I met Winnie Holzman!" thread_**]**

* * *

Angela knocks lightly, waits, then pushes open the door to her parents' room. It feels so different now, that end of the house, now that her father is gone. In some ways she'd seen it coming, but really, it'd taken them all by surprise. Not one of the Chases had seen this for themselves. Even while the separation was happening, it didn't seem real. It was as if it was happening to some one else, to some other family. But it did happen to them. Graham Chase moved out.

It wasn't because of Halle. Hallie Lowenthal was a symptom; she'd merely slipped into the cracks of the growing divide between Patty and Graham. The divide that had maybe shook their foundation at different times, but had never seemed to threaten to unroot and collapse their entire world. Until it did.

No, it wasn't because of Hallie; it had started before her. It had started before the girl who grabbed his tie. Graham honestly couldn't say when, or why it had started. And who was to say where it would end? Graham had long thought of it as something he had to — and _would —_ get over on his own. For one thing he never saw it as inherently to do with_ Patty_. Not fully. It was something inside of him, something that was missing or somehow off, _outside their marriage_. He had never planned to leave. He wanted the marriage, their family, to work, and to last. But she grew suspicious and things came to a head in a way they were never meant to. And he couldn't walk it back from there. He's been gone now for three weeks. And in that time, the Chase home has descended into the bell jar.

Tepidly Angela turns the knob, and pushes open the door. In bed, Patty lies curled on her side, lying like dead weight. A scene grown too familiar to her older daughter. It's not her mother there on that empty queen bed, it's a shell; an empty husk, a hollow waif unequipped to reconcile the reality of her circumstances with the vision of her life she'd built for eighteen years.

If she makes herself look at it objectively, Angela knows this hasn't been anything close to easy on her father. She might even recognize that her mother might have played some limited part in all this, but Angela is not in the least inclined to look at this objectively. Objectively, she has been left. And alone as she is, it doesn't matter to her that it had been hell on Graham to tell the girls. In truth it had been hell on him to leave, to leave all three of them, but it doesn't matter to her. She has been left. It doesn't matter to her that nothing about the separation made him feel free — not even the end of fighting. She just doesn't care.

Other things are taking precedence.

The room Angela steps into feels dark and closed in; it is not a mess — Angela's been straightening up — but everything about it feels different. The room, the house, their lives, have shifted; it's only right to her that guilt should consume her father.

The room is desolate, and emotionally void — it is no longer a place that is lived in. "Mom," Angela says softly, like she's reaching out to her across a vacuum. Patty doesn't speak. She does not stir. Angela, her eyes wide and brow furrowed, tries again, even softer. "_Mom_."

Patty's glazed eyes blink. Her head shifts just fractionally. "Angela, please," she sighs. At this point she doesn't know what she's asking for. _To be left alone? To be allowed to sink back into the darkness? To not have to have or be reminded of the state she's descended into?_ _For the girls to go it on their own a little longer?_ She summons enough wherewithal to lift her head and say, "Make sure you girls eat." Then her jaw sinks back into the pillow. "And the garbage," Patty rubs at her eye, "is someone making sure the cans go out and in?"

"Mom." Angela's brow knits tighter. "_Please_…" But no further response comes. She's disappeared again. And Angela, still in the threshold, waiting, eventually retreats, and silently shuts the door behind her.

* * *

**_Okay, now that that is done, I just have to say: 'Patty + Graham Forever!'_**


	2. Danielle

Behind the closed door of the girls' shared bathroom, still in her school clothes, Danielle sits alone in the empty bathtub. She's doing her homework, as she does all things these days, behind locked door.

Angela knocks on the door. "Danielle. _ Danielle come out."

Danielle's eventual answer is distant and dulled. "I'm not hungry."

"You don't have to eat," Angela offers. She just wants that door to open. She wants someone else to be alive and present in this house with her. She can't keep on talking to her family through shut doors.

Danielle takes her time in responding. It's quiet in the bathroom. Quiet in the cool, tiled room in the quiet still house. Too often life happens around Danielle — _to_ her, _around_ her, _without_ her. Her parents' fighting happened around her. Their split happened without her. If life is a series of things she can't control that endlessly exclude her, she's excusing herself. She's not in there wanting things to go back to normal. She's in there to be left alone. To stop thinking about what is normal. She's in there to adjust, and to acclimate, and to — accept the new quiet of the house.

"I'm doing homework." Her sullen voice is low, and stiff. She's less quick to speak these days. There's fewer people around now to listen.

Angela presses her palm solemnly against the door; she doesn't know what else to say. She should not have to go through the motions of normality on her own. Even if at this point it is just going through the motions. Her mother, her sister, they're not going through this alone. Life as she knew it has been pulled out from under her too.

Though she'd had some reason to look it for it, it was none the less a disorienting blow to her when it really happened. It is not just to Danielle that this has happened. Disillusionment is lonely. And Angela does not choose to lose her family piecemeal. "You've been locked in there for hours. For days. Just. Stop hiding in the bathroom."

"I'm not hiding."

Angela's tired forehead falls against the door. "Please."

Danielle hears everything that's in her sister's voice. She hesitates... thinks... but in the end pursues her own impulse... "Go away."


	3. Jordan

Downstairs, alone, Angela sits at the dining room table, dispassionately stabbing her fork at a pitiful looking bowl of spaghetti. Somewhere her father's off cooking something amazing for someone else, and she's here, with luke warm, overdone, limp, tasteless noodles. And there in the large space of the first floor of her family's home, with every single lamp and light turned on, she doesn't even have the interest to reach for the salt.

There's a slight knock at the back door before she hears the knob turn and open. There's only one person it can be. Since moving to Pride House Rickie no longer stops by unannounced, Sharon always uses the front door, and Brian's still keeping his distance. Jordan let's himself in, peeks into the kitchen, but ventures no further. "Angela—" Though he does not move down the hall he speaks her name without much concern of being overheard. Lately, he's found no one's around to hear, or mind.

Angela looks away from congealed tomato-based goop and answers lightly over her shoulder. "In here." The sound of Jordan Catalano's voice has become commonplace in the Chase house, for anyone who leaves their room to hear it.

The coast clear, Jordan advances down the hallway with cool familiarity, past the stairs, toward the dining room. There he leans against the entrance way, and there he looks at her. Though he's familiar with the house, and pretty much spends more time downstairs these days than either Danielle or Patty, it is not his house, and he does not treat it as though it is. He still hangs back some; this is not his place, and they're not playing house. "Hey." His cool eyes look about the place, "Your mom home?" When Angela does not speak he glances up to the ceiling, "In bed?"

There's little need to answer; even when she's not in bed, there's still an air of slumber about Patty. Such that she's barely recognizable as herself. Jordan nods then enters the dining room. With just the lightest tug on her sleeve he pulls her up from her chair and walks her over to the sofa where he pulls her down with him. Sitting beside him her head lays on his chest and absentmindedly, looking blankly across the room, he plays with her hair. After a long time, Angela releases a deep breath. Jordan nods, and speaks into the top of her head, "Yeah."

"I can't get her to talk to me. Not about anything other than garbage cans. Danielle's in avoidance-mode overdrive. It's a mess."

Jordan looks down at her, "Heard from your dad?"

Angela straightens a little, looking up at him from beneath knit brows, "I don't know what to say to him." She doesn't know if she can forgive, or if it's her place to forgive. She doesn't know how to let her father be her father anymore, now that the truth they'd all agreed upon as a family has been betrayed. Rather than allow anger and abandonment to get the better of her, Angela purposefully changes the subject, "Hungry?" She's looking up at him with those large soft-blue eyes, looking at him like his stomach's all that's on her mind, and Jordan graciously accepts the subject change.

He shrugs, and pulls her with him from the couch as he rises. He doesn't speak much about all this, _who is he to tell her it'll be all right? _For one thing, his standards for 'all right' vary greatly from hers — by his measure her family's still doing fine. He's there because he likes her, and because he senses she needs someone being there just for her, and it helps he doesn't need anything heavy back from her. He's not there to make her talk to him about it. Instead he reaches out his fingertips to lightly push her in the center of the back as she walks before him to the kitchen. He'll be quiet with her, he'll be solemn, he will listen, he'll lend a hand in what small capacity he is able, but he's not tiptoeing around her, and he's not letting her sink into a mess of self-pity.

Pushing the kitchen door open for him, Angela looks at him dully and remarks dryly on what she has on offer to serve him, "It's pretty awful."

"Hmph," Jordan eyes her and snorts as he passes. "Even better."


	4. Distraction in a quiet house

Backs up against the wall, Angela and Jordan sit side by side in the upstairs hallway. They sit in silence at either side of the bathroom door, picking at the terrible spaghetti. Between them waits a third bowl, should Danielle emerge, or, even just open the door.

...

An hour passes and eventually they migrate downstairs again. Danielle only crossed the thirteen steps from the bathroom to her bedroom once they were safely downstairs and in the kitchen. It's close to ten, it's dark outside the kitchen windows, Danielle's living off crackers and a jar of peanut butter she has stashed in her room, Patty hasn't eaten or slept for more than three solid hours since who knows when, and Jordan and Angela have the house to themselves.

Jordan leans across the counter, picking out the carrots from his bowl of microwaved mixed vegetables, trying to call up something funny from the day to relate to his girlfriend as she does the dishes. In a robe, looking exhausted and worse for the wear, Patty descends the stairs and enters into the kitchen. Though she's been managing to get it up for work each day so far, every still-functioning part of her drains upon returning home; she hardly notices either of them as she shuffles past. Jordan doesn't even seem to register on her radar.

Jordan stays put, keeping out of the way and watches her, his eyebrows slightly lifted as he passively observers her. Patty goes to pour herself a cup of day old coffee, absently patting Angela on the back a few times as she passes. As Patty looks blankly into her room temperature mug she hardly reacts to the ring of the telephone breaking the room's silence.

When Graham'd first left, the phone ringing was an event of central focus, but now it's like a background noise she can't quite place or signify the meaning of, like the vague distant chirping of an outdated smoke detector. As the phone continues ringing she initially looks at it in wary alarm, then scowls at it for half a moment, then picks up the receiver. Angela watches this anxiously.

"Hell'o," Patty's voice is utterly drained. Her brow creases as she listens to the caller on the other end. "_ No. No, there's no Tino here."

At this Jordan deftly straightens, and saunters towards Patty. "Here." And he slips the phone from her hands, and takes over at least this one minor problem.

Jordan walks the phone and the phone call into the hallway, the extra long coiled phone cord stretching to full length, and Angela tries to tempt her mother with food, who in the end ends up retreating upstairs. "Good'nigh'."

Jordan reenters and hangs up the phone, looking after the swinging door through which Patty Chase exited. "Ev'rything okay?" he asks.

Angela looks at him and lips pursed nods. "Mm,hm."

"She any better?"

Angela shrugs. "How am I supposed ta tell?"

Jordan moves closer to her, and with his face close to her ear, pulls the dishrag from her hands, chucks it into the sink, and wordlessly intertwines his fingers in hers. "Bed?" he asks, jerking his head in the direction of her bedroom.

Angela tightens her fingers around his and with a nod, allows herself to give up on the day, and leads her boyfriend toward the stairs to her room. One by one they flip the switches and turn the knobs to every light on the ground floor, then walk together to mount the stairs, brush their teeth, and put themselves to bed.

Shutting off her bedside lamp, so that her room now is lit only by a distant streetlamp and the back neighbor's flickering yellow porch light, Angela climbs in bed beside him. Jordan sleeps over at Angela's house a lot now. Most nights in fact. Easily their legs tangle and wrap together as she tucks in closer to him and Jordan wraps his arm around her. Gripping her shoulder to him, Jordan exhales, while his mind, though not his hands, journey further down. With her face tucked her into the nook of his neck, Angela lies there, letting the day and the weeks once more fall away; she breathes him in, _cigarettes, peppermint, and... boy_, and snugs in closer, nuzzling his neck and setting small slow kisses on the under shelf of his jaw. In response to her touch Jordan shifts his head, catching her lips with his, and holds her there, one deep lengthy kiss following another.

Though in bed beside one another, both in some degree of undress, their kisses lead no further than lips on lips and embracing holds; they're not there for sex. Or, she isn't. And Jordan's there, for what he can get, but also just to be there, with her. He'd done the separation thing from her already — staying away because there wasn't going to be sex — it hadn't gone so well. So he's on a new tack now, giving it a try — what Angela had once called 'working up to it.' Though some nights spent together in her double bed amount to much more than kissing, they have yet to adventure _that_ far._  
_

To be sure, he is willing, but although Jordan can name much worse that can happen in a family than divorce — not even that, yet, a _separation_ — he gets it enough to recognize it's traumatic for her, and has unloaded a burden of new worries and responsibilities upon her previously unencumbered shoulders, and he's come to get, through a little trial and a lot of error, that she has enough change on her plate for the time being, and he wouldn't be helping his cause any — not to mention the girl he's supposedly fallen for — to press the issue now. He wants to_ sleep_ with her, that hasn't changed, but just sleeping with her doesn't feel like settling.

And in that vein, eventually their lips separate and they settle into a cuddle that will see them through the night. They're not playing house; they're not a miniature family. They're still each living separate lives, maintaining separate friends and separate schedules, but now that no one cares, why not spend the nights together? Plus, while her house might be a little melancholic, it's still a vastly better environment than his. He'll take sad and quiet over hostile and volatile, easily. Plus there's her. Jordan goes to work, he hangs with his friends, he rehearses with his band, he goes out at night, but after all of it he ends up ending the night with her.

It's hard to say what the others in the house have noticed, but so far no one's said anything. It used to be, when this all started, that Jordan was up and out of the house before anyone else awoke. But Patty's insomnia is pushing her out of the house earlier and earlier these days so that it's hard to stay ahead of her, and she seems so oblivious to things anyway, he gave up on trying to beat her out the door. Now, if he chooses, he just stays till it's time to leave for school. While he sleeps there, Jordan's got no claim on the Chase's craftsman — it's not his to become overly familiar with, he's still living at his place. His clothes are there, as are his guitars; only twice has he showered at the Chase's — but it's getting easier and easier to fall asleep with her close in his arms. And for her, having Jordan there in the darkness with her is the best thing she can think of to keep her mind from running in all the directions she does not want it to. He is a beautiful, solid, muscled distraction keeping her mind from uncontrollably churning over and over on _divorce_ and _affairs_ and _custody battles_ and the futility of a child's effort to repair her parent's expiring vows.


	5. Little sister

_**Thanks to everyone who's reading, and especially to you fabulous few who have taken the time to review! I'm glad this is working out all right. I have had a few short scenes, the one with Danielle in the bathroom for one, for this storyline for a couple of years now, but I never got around to writing a full story around them until now. I've been doing a lot of Walking Dead (hearts!) writing lately and I missed you guys and**_** MSCL**_** but am kind of overwhelmed by all the work still required by upcoming chapters in my existing MSCL stories, so I thought I'd try my hand at this. (That doesn't exactly make sense though does it?) Anyways, I'm happy to be back here with you, this fanship is so welcoming and gracious! xxx **_

* * *

While Angela showers Jordan travels downstairs in search of something in the way of a portable breakfast. Passing through the kitchen doorway he stops when he finds Danielle already in there. As much time as he's spent there lately, it's mostly late at night, after Danielle's in her room for the night, or he's just shut up with Angela in her own room; he's hardly seen Danielle. Even given the new arrangement he's not especially accustomed to being in a room alone with the little sister. He pauses, deliberating whether or not to retreat, but her young eyes are on him blankly, and it just seems stupid to wordlessly turn around and walk away, so he continues on, moving further into the room.

He looks her over, she's wearing some kind of wrinkled green getup. It doesn't look like normal clothes to him. Jordan nods, "Hey."

Danielle just looks at him. Lately it's hard for her to be impressed by anything, even her sister's boyfriend with whom she may have previously been fascinated. It never occurred to Jordan to try to impress her, he's merely trying to keep from stepping on toes and to mitigate the inherent awkwardness in their scenario.

He nods again, this time at her bowl of cereal, conscious not to make a thing of her finally eating, "There any more of that?" He wasn't exactly looking to eat a bowl of cereal this morning, but he can hear Angela's shower still running above their heads, so he figures he has time, and it seemed an innocuous enough conversation starter, or, stand-in.

Danielle looks at him, pushes a spoonful in her mouth while still looking at him, then shrugs. Not one for surplus conversation himself, and a heavy relier on wordless shrugs, Jordan's face cracks a half smile of appreciation, and takes the shrug as a passive invitation to see for himself. He opens the fridge and finds it surprisingly stocked for a woman who's barely going through the motions of normality and two girls without ready access to transportation. "You've got milk," he remarks, lifting the still mostly-full gallon of 1% from it's shelf in the fridge door.

Danielle takes another bite. "Camille."

This means nothing to Jordan. He's not even sure it was a name; _maybe a brand?_ He lets it go. Holding the milk in his hand Jordan looks to Danielle for a heads up as to where he can find a bowl. He should know; even before all this he'd grabbed a dish now and then from a cabinet, but he never remembers those kinds of things, not unless the place is a second home, like Tino's, or Shane's mom's place.

Danielle looks at him skeptically then points passionlessly to the cabinet to his left. "You should pay more attention; if you're here all the time."

Up to this point Danielle really hasn't said much about his constant presence, at least not to him. And now that she's said it, it didn't exactly come across as hostile. He nods and turns round to grab the dish. "Thanks." While the fridge is mostly well stocked, the cabinets are running low on clean dishes. The dishes get used — mostly by Angela — and then they get stacked, and piled up, or left to soak. She's doing what she can to manage, but between school, and looking after everything she is, and trying just to keep herself afloat, the dishes are one thing she's letting slip through the cracks.

Danielle watches as Jordan locates the cereal, dumps a little in his bowl, and pours milk on top. He manages to get the blue cap back on the plastic gallon jug, but he never actually returns the milk to the fridge. Instead, he leaves it on the counter while he goes in search for a spoon.

"In there," she finally offers, indicating the drawer he'd passed two times already.

He looks at her through his falling shaggy hair and smiles lightly; again he says, "Thanks." He pulls out a spoon. The silverware drawer only gets shut half closed.

"It'll go bad," she says, with no further explanation. He looks at her for some clarification as he raises his first spoonful to his mouth. "The milk. You can't just take what you want and leave the rest of it to spoil. You have to think about other people."

Jordan's attention's trained fully on the tweleve-year-old in front of him. He can see how it could get annoying, but he's kind of a fan of what a straight shooter this kid is. She doesn't pull any punches, she just says it. He's mostly always admired that in people. And Jordan finds himself wondering if she's always been like this, or if it's resulted from the turmoil in her living circumstances. He eyes the abandoned milk, glances once more at her, then takes it up and puts it away. "Happy?" He hasn't said it with an attitude.

"Thrilled," she responds dryly. Again he half smirks in good humor. "Nothing makes me happier than cold dairy."

Jordan can't recall encountering a kid this universally cynical, even he had been quick to laugh when he was her age. There's something in her stoney demeanor that's compelling, and as he sits himself atop the kitchen counter, eating his cereal and debating whether or not to make a fresh pot of coffee, Jordan takes up the challenge to befriend this girl.

But... he's not coming up with a lot to say to her... "You take the bus to school?"

Danielle looks at him, incredulous he'd really care. "Sometimes. I'm in a carpool. But..." It's kind of just hitting her her dad won't be around to drive it when his week next comes around.

"Mm,hm." _Now what?_ The running water upstair's been shut off for some time; Angela must be close to being ready and making it downstairs... He takes his last bite of cereal, and nods at her, "What's that you're wearin'?"

Danielle looks down at her green skirt blouse and vest, then back up at the seventeen-year-old struggling to make awkward conversation with her. "It's a uniform."

Jordan nods, guessing that makes sense. "What? You go to private school?"

Danielle's eyes narrow, _is he really this clueless?_ "Girl_Scouts," she says with drawn out emphasis. "It's a Girl Scouts uniform."

"Oh. Right." Danielle's not convinced her explanation holds any meaning for this Jordan Catalano. "Cool." His brow furrows as something occurs to him, "Ya hav'ta wear that every day?"

Now it's Danielle's brows that furrow, "No. We wear them on the days we have meetings." She was going to let it drop there, but for some reason she adds, "_Only_... not everybody does it now. It's all kinda, falling apart."

"Yeah?" he asks. "How come?"

For the first time that morning Danielle looks at him like he might be a person worth talking to; he isn't turning out to be the worst listener. "Because... everybody thinks they're too cool. You know, _sixth grade._"

"Yeh," he chuckles, appreciating the way she's mocking her peers and their new sense of self-importance from such a trial milestone such as the sixth grade.

"We worked so hard on this troop," she grouses, "since _kindergarden. _And everyone's just, giving up on it. I don't think there'll even _be_ a troop next year."

"Sucks." Jordan's watched his band fall apart twice, he get's what that's like.

"What sucks?" It's Angela behind them, dressed, hair dried, and entering the kitchen. They both look at her.

"Nothing."

Angela, gratified to see her sister's been eating, and evidently speaking, looks from Danielle to Jordan, "You ready?"


	6. Shane

After parting with Angela at the front entrance, Jordan makes his way down Liberty's east corridor, thinking back on the days when it would have been a real question if he was going to class. "Catalano."

Jordan stops, and hangs back, letting Shane catch up with him. "Hey. How's it goin'."

Cracking his knuckles Shane looks Jordan over, smiling, "Not bad." He jerks his head and they continue down the hall. As they walk Jordan slaps hands with a friend as they pass and Shane wags his brows at three different girls he's working on, adding a whistle for one of them. Rounding the corner near the stairwell Shane asks, "Hey, uh, what time's your curfew, guy? 'Cuz, Joey's got this thing going tonigh—"

Jordan laughs, "My _what?_"

"_Curfew_, man. Now that you're all, domesticated an' shit."

Jordan shakes his head and just lets it roll off his back. "'s not like that."

"Yeah?" Shane cracks a smile, jabbing his friend in the shoulder. "What's it _like_?"

"_Hey_," Jordan scoffs, "you asking what '_it's_'_ like_?" Both boys chuckle and Jordan gives his buddy a fraternal shove down the hall.

"Hold up," Shane stops them at a locker and turns the combination.

Jordan looks around, "Who's locker is this?"

The locker pops open and Shane gives Jordan a mischievous wink. "Carla's."

Jordan swallows his good-natured surprise. "Olson?"

"Uh,huh," Shane relishes, biting down a bit wickedly on the tip of his tongue.

Jordan laughs. "What're ya doing in Carla Olson's locker?"

"You kidding?" Shane takes a look in either direction, then reaches back behind a couple notebooks and pulls out a brown bottle of booze. He passes it off to Jordan, tucking it inside his corduroy jacket. "_Man_," he grins, "you of all people should know this — the good girls? The straight ones? Their lockers _never_ get searched." He shuts the door and walks on. "Safety zone."

Jordan snickers and walks with his friend back through the halls, keeping the glass bottle steady within his jacket until he can slip it into his pocket; he glances at his friend, "You gettin' into this now?"

He chuckles, "_Uh,huh_," like he knows what Jordan's about. "I c'n see Chase's handprints all over _that._"

"Shut up."

"Never knew a Catalano to say 'Too early' b'fore. 's all I'm sayin'," he chuckles with a smirk. "Wh_a_t?" he rips. "You give it up? Along with your own little beddy-bye at Casa Catalano."

"O-_kay_," Jordan cuts in, "quit it."

"She doin' your laundry, too? Cookin', and putting you to bed at a respectable hour?" Shane smirks again, taking great pleasure in ragging on his friend.

Shane doesn't bother Jordan; he means nothing by it. In the first place his current thing with Angela hasn't cramped anything with his friends, he goes out as much as ever — he hasn't gone into hiding. It wouldn't faze him anyway if he did mean anything by it. The siuation at Angela's is shit for her but he's growing to like it. Well, not _it_ itself, but the time he's spending with her. Jordan's always been cool with being on his own, to some degree, but he sees that changing. It's not bad, walking through a door at the end of a night knowing someone's there who'll care, who's maybe even waiting. It doesn't mean it's serious between them — not just by default, but he's not dense enough or proud enough to deny he'd missed her in those weeks he hadn't had her. And he'll be damned if he doesn't take pleasure in knowing that she's his. He even takes some pleasure in knowing that she needs him — that as useless as he can be, he's got something real, if not readily identifiable, that she needs. He can give her that, and he can get what he needs too (if not all that he wants), and it's working out okay. For once. 'Cuz for him, things don't always do so. Shane and the others could go to hell if they have a problem with the current arrangement, only, Shane doesn't.

"'S a good gig," he nods, side chewing on a loose pen cap. "A game girl and a house to go home to — a house that's not _yours._" All Shane Trudenowski cares about is Jordan Catalano being Jordan Catalano; it doesn't matter to him where he's sleeping. For one thing, he'd be hard pressed to begrudge a buddy a warm bed. Shane winks conspiratorially, "Sweet situation."

"'S not like that."

"I _know_ what it's not like," he smirks, telling his friend he knows exactly how 'game' his girl is not. "It's cool."


	7. Work

Jordan moves through the loud and crowded garage and lets himself through the back exit into the alley behind the filling station where he works. He pulls out a cigarette and in the same motion as he brings it to his lips he nods wordlessly at his girlfriend. On break, Jordan pulls out his crappy, dollar fifty lighter and leans against the concrete wall. Angela's there, on an old office chair long ago replaced by Jordan's boss with newer furniture, and stashed outside with it's stained synthetic upholstery and cut and cracking vinyl, for coffee breaks and cigarette sneaks. She's sitting out there, amongst milk crates, a stool, and dozens of ground cigarette butts, bundled in her big coat against the chilled breeze, reading her history textbook. It's not clear from the way Jordan lights his cigarette if he knew she'd be out there, but irregardless he's not surprised to see her. Jordan lights the cigarette, the lighter catching and stalling a few times before igniting, inhales, and in time releases the cloud of smoke from the corner of his mouth in avoidance of her face. "Hey."

"Hey."

Jordan picks a trace of tobacco off his tongue, then looks at her. He reaches out and tilts the cover of her book toward her so to see what class she's studying for. _US History._ That would mean he should be fixing to study it too, as they're in the same class. Though being honest with himself, he doesn't exactly see that happening. He takes another drag; his hands are dirty and streaked with grease and oil. "Ya cold?" Angela shakes her head. He watches as she tucks her falling hair behind her ear. "Whutch'ya got goin' on t'day?" He flicks ashes onto the ground.

Angela rests her textbook onto her lap and pushes her hair back across her head. "Danielle's got Girl Scouts. I've got a study thing for a test with Sharon. In a little bit."

Jordan nods, and leaves his cigarette hanging loosely from his lower lip as he raises both arms above his head and stretches. His back aches some from leaning over ill-kept up engines all afternoon. As he reaches, and leans back into the stretch, his work shirt and long-sleeved waffled undershirt raise some, exposing just a little of his lower abdomen just above where his navy pants and boxers sit low on his narrow hips. This brief flash of skin, lean muscle and hair catches Angela's eye, but she doesn't exactly smile, and she looks away before he takes any notice of her gaze.

A cloud of smoke rolls out from between his parted lips, "Feel like flushin' a fuel-injector?"

Angela's absently thumbing the corner edges of the pages of her book. "I'm not union."

Jordan cracks a smile; sometimes her subtle humor really takes him by surprise. He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, dangling it by his side between his calloused and grease-grimy fingers. "Guess," he reflects with a glint, "I wouldn't havfta tell." That catches a smirk out of her, and he likes the snorted scoffing noise it pulled from her. That half-cracked smile in the corners of her mouth, simultaneously praising him and dismissing him, arouses in him his desire for her, and he wants more, wants to get that laugh from her again, maybe the next time even bigger. Jordan wants to see his pretty girlfriend smile, and laugh, and shrug the world off, and to finally just say 'fuck it' to all the things she's been trying to control but can't. "Guess…" he says again, his voice dropping, "you could show me what a dark alley's _for_…" He ducks his head, and in response to his own proposition, sneaks a conspicuously sheepish look in her direction. "If, you w_a_nted."

Angela does laugh. First it's a widening of her cold pink lips, and a twinkling and a creasing at the eyes, and then the smile bursts into a guffaw and then he's got her chuckling and shaking her head at him through her little Angela Chase grin. "Oh," she smiles broadly but dryly. "_O_-kay."

Jordan smiles back, and because he can't help himself, and because she looks so damned desirable sitting there not looking like she's about to cry, he winks at her, and flicks off more ashes for good measure.

"Got any other smart id_ea_s?"

In answer to her teasing prompting Jordan shifts his stance closer to her and holds out his dwindling cigarette before her, holding it in position for her to take a puff from it, should she choose. He never blinks when she bats his hand and the smoking appendage away from herself with her history book; he'd never expected her to accept.

After a final drag Jordan drops the butt to the ground and grinds it out with his boot. With his thumbs in his side belt loops he hitches his pants back over his hips, then brushes under his chilled nose with his index finger. "Gotta get back," he sniffs. Jordan can time his breaks by his cigarettes. Angela nods. But he's not letting her nose return to that textbook before she lifts that face of hers to him. Jordan bends himself down over her and, with no other preamble than the brief chuckle they'd shared moments earlier, his warm tongue presses past her lips and plays with hers in a deeper, more longing kiss than she'd expected. Then he's upright again _—_ just as she's giving in _—_ pulling open the heavy fireproof door back into the garage and the remainder of his shift. "Get some coffee; if ya get too cold." Then he's gone.

She's not allowed inside the garage, obviously. The filling station's insurance doesn't cover that, but Jordan doesn't particularly care, and he's got no problem with her slipping through to the coffee maker if she does it quiet. For the most part, his manager's lax, and Angela, who's never around all that much, never makes herself a nuisance, and does not get in the way. He'd never especially been looking for a girl who'd hang around his workplace doing her homework. Girls were more of an at-the-end-of-the-night kind of thing, a between-classes, in-the-backseat, in-a-dark-hallway kind of thing, but he'd gotten in Angela a lot he hadn't been looking for, and a few laughs over a cigarette and a mini make-out session's nothing he's too unhappy about.

Angela tucks her hair, wets and presses her lips, and returns to her studying. Not long after a horn sounds twice at the end of the alley and Angela rises, grabs her bag and her books, and leaves to meet Sharon in her Saturn.


	8. Keys

Late at night, done with work and band practice, Jordan lets himself into the Chase's backdoor with a key he's carrying on a ring with his others. He turns the key lightly with just the right hard-twerk at the 45-degree angle so that the lock clicks open with ease just when it should, like he's done it many times before. Jordan pulls the keys from the lock, twists open the knob, and steps into the still and quiet Chase house, ready to slip upstairs and into bed. Closing shut the door and twisting down the deadbolt, Jordan sets down his guitar case, and moves further into the house. Then stops short—

Instead of walking into a sleeping house, Jordan does not find he's alone in the downstairs; the house is not empty. Graham Chase is standing in the kitchen. "_Jordan_?"

"Oh—" Jordan looks about him, unsure of how to proceed. There's nothing there to intervene. He clears his throat. "Hey."

Graham's head tilts in stunned incredulity, "Did you just—?" His face crinkles in extreme disbelief, "Do you have a _key_?"

Jordan bites at his thumb nail and his eyes drop to the floor — he's not exactly big on angry dad types. "Angela—" his head raises here, but he avoids any prolonged eye contact with him, looking instead behind Graham, or just off to his side, "didn't say you'd—"

"You have a _key?_" is repeated. Jordan says nothing. Graham is floored in his confoundedness and his brow furrows deeper as his neck cranes even further. "What's going on here?"

Jordan, his eyes still on Graham, composedly directs his voice upstairs, "_Angela_?" This is not his scene to mediate. He waits, and Graham's eyes too flash expectantly toward the stairs.

In what seems, in the quiet room, some while, Angela appears sleepily in pajama bottoms, a tank, and her robe. Rubbing her eyes she isn't surprised to see Jordan, but she stops starkly in her path when she sees her father. "What're y_o_u d_o_ing here?"

Graham's mouth drops open in exasperation before he can reign in the words he needs in this moment, "This is _my_ house. What is h_e_ doing here?"

Angela is cold and dead in her response; she is not interested in entertaining her father's obsolete sense of entitlement of inquiry rights over her, or this house, and Jordan does not envy Graham for his position. "Y_ou_ moved _ou_t," she hurls gravely.

"He didn't move in," Graham states, speaking the words he wants someone else to have already adamantly said.

His teenage daughter looks at him hard. "No," she answers, with heavy finality.

"I know your m_o_ther doesn't know about this."

"_Do_ you?" Angela shoots back at him. He knows nothing of what her mother knows. Or feels. He doesn't know because he isn't there. He left. Angela's eyes narrow and the intensity with which she's been feeling all of this zeros in on her father in a cold sneer. "I saw you," she tells him. "I _saw_ you with her. Last year. Last September; I _saw_ you talking with that girl. I heard you on the ph_o_ne with her. And I— I didn't say anything. _I didn't say anything_. And now, you're g_one_."

Graham looks crushed and he takes a step forward to her, "Honey. It's not your fault—"

Angela wants nothing to do with this visage of her father — someone who reaches out to her, makes her feel safe — that's not who this man is now. She does not know this man in front of her; it's not the father she'd grown up knowing. She scoffs sharply. "Are you _kidding_? I _know_ it's not my fault. This has been going on _forever_. And y_ou_'re telling _me_—"

"An-gela," Graham's voice deepens in his effort to reestablish himself as the father, the patriarch in charge. "You d_o_n't d_o_ this. You're _sixteen_. You don't live with your boyfriend."

"Well," she flings back at him, "we're _not_ living together. Jordan doesn't l_i_ve h_ere_. You'd know that if _you_ lived here."

"Jordan," he turns finally to him, "go home." Then Graham looks to Angela, "Where's your mother?"

Knowing Angela's okay, Jordan turns to leave, but Graham stops him and wordlessly holds out his hand. Jordan's eyes move from the hand to reference Angela; when she shrugs, he pulls the Chase key off his ring and drops it in Graham's hand, then slips out.

Angela watches him leave but Graham's attention is focused solely on her. "Are you sleeping with him?"

"You don't get to ask me that." Her voice is steady, and somber, and true. She could have yelled it, she could have sneered it, but she only said it; and it's the weight of her conviction that hits him hard.

_Angela._ His eldest daughter Angela is so close but so significantly not his. He hadn't bargained for this distance between them when he'd packed a bag and driven to his brother's. He hadn't signed away his role as father. For some time he had felt the divide between himself and his daughter, but he'd never guessed it would grow this wide. She seems so unreachable. And he's heartbroken, and furious, not in a small part with himself.

"You're sixteen."

"I know how old I am. How old are _you_? How old is your girlfriend?"

"Angela—" he starts, exhausted and unsure of how to reach through to her, "It's not her fault."

Angela looks at him with steely steadfast assurance. "_I know whose fault it is_." Graham looks as though he might shudder under her unforgiving gaze. "What did you come here for? Why are you here?"

"I came to check in on you. You girls."

"When we're _asleep_?" She is not interested in giving him any leeway, or the benefit of her doubt. She'd done that, stupidly; it'd ended in this. "What did you forget." Angela's decided she's done asking her father questions, instead she's telling him what she sees.

"Don't," he curbs her. "I got off work, I came here. To see you girls, and, your mother."

Angela's sharp scoff cuts through the quiet kitchen. "Well, good luck; I haven't seen signs of her in weeks."

"What's that?"

"Nothing," she covers, backtracking that thoughtless betrayal of her mother's confidence. "She's fine." Angela looks up at her father, "I'm going to bed." Her wide clear blue eyes hold him fixed in her gaze. "I assume you won't be here, once you've gotten whatever it is you came for." And she turns round, climbs the stairs, and shuts off the light.


	9. Bells

Mid morning the next day, after second period, Angela went looking for Jordan. She wanted to clear the air, and find out if everything was still okay between them after last night's awkward altercation. She found him outside, by the vending machines with Tino. Tino made a charmingly off-color remark about _interruptions _and fathers walking in, and that was about all that was said about it. Jordan didn't seem all that fazed. He didn't say any of the list of things she thought he might have; he didn't avoid her eye contact or walk away, and he didn't seem at all interested in her prepared apology and retroactive reflection that perhaps she shouldn't have handed over a house key to him like it was nothing. What he _did_ do was take her hand, his long lanky fingers entwining tightly with hers, and lead her back behind the groundskeeper's shed and lean into her with such unspoken intention there was no mistaking what was on his mind.

Standing there, tangled up with him, Angela's eyes flutter up to his, as her lower lip catches in her teeth and she lingers in heated anticipation. "Didn't sleep last night," he tells her huskily, his intense gaze never releasing her from his attention. His proximity is making her breathless and heady, and a faint blush climbs her cheeks, but she emotes no verbal response. But Jordan isn't looking for words, more so he takes pleasure in her difficulty to muster some. That grin — that jaunty, self-satisfied grin, the one that shows he knows exactly what he's about — takes hold of her, and the slump in her posture against the wall, and the upward arching of her mouth towards his is much closer to the mark he's after. His bottom lip brushes against her forehead when he speaks again, "Thinkin' 'bout you…"

Angela's lips part to speak to him, but instead her fingers reach out and slip beneath his layered shirts to touch his lean waist — his skin is warm. Intoxicatingly so. The kind of warm that makes her want to wrap herself up in him. And wish he still had a key to the door that would grant him free access to her bedroom. When she's with him, this close, with such loaded possibility simmering between them, it's easy to forget all the rest. She gets dizzy, and heated, and breaths come less easily, and she thinks about him, and about the burning in her lips and the dull yearning somewhere deep inside grows a little more acute. And she's back to before, to when what mostly occupied her mind was him. Before bags were packed, and bathroom doors were locked, and her house went quiet. Jordan Catalano makes her feel normal — and alive — because he isn't going to wait around forever just letting her be sad, watching as her worry piles higher weighing her down. From the start she liked him. She'd _always _w_an_ted him. Now it's a n_ee_d, and a w_an_t, mixed in desire and… a willingness (a happy willingness) to be readily distracted. Taking hold his hip belt loops in her hooked index fingers, Angela tugs his body — his hips, closer to her.

And then their lips meet. Their lips and their tongues. Hands in hair, faces flushing, chests nearly heaving. The bell rings, and by the time the electric blaring dies out, they disentangle, her small hand slips into his, and they walk to class.

* * *

"_Hey_," Mr. Demitri interrupts his U.S. history lesson, "Kelly and Dylan—" he says dryly in the direction of Angela and Jordan. All eyes in the classroom follow. "We all think it's cute you two finding each other — teenage love and all that—" his reprimand takes on a style unlikely to flat-out villainize him to his other students— "But get it together." Angela, slightly mortified at having been singled out, freezes in place. "Sit up. Feet, off laps._ Learn_ something." Demitri shoots them an indiscernible look, but one that Angela thinks is safe to take as he's quickly losing his patience with her and from the start has never had any for Jordan; then he turns back to the board and to the lecture he'd been giving, though most eyes in the classroom remain trained on them.

Stung a little from the unexpected public scolding, but not otherwise fazed, Angela sits up a little, straightens her posture and removes her feet from Jordan's lap. Jordan, on whom the allusion to the lovers on the adolescent soap opera sensation is completely lost, leans back slightly from her, but otherwise makes no change to his countenance or lack of engagement in the civics lesson.

Angela though did get it (his meaning), as did their classmates. There may have been a point last fall when she would have been thrilled at such a public acknowledgment _—_ no matter the humiliating form it took _—_ of her connection to Jordan Catalano, but it is not last fall, and she is not so desperate to prove something now. Jordan _is_ her boyfriend, she no longer has to scrounge pitifully for evidence that he might be, so at this point, especially given her mood lately with everything else going on, she'd much prefer to avoid being made the center of attention and fodder for a teacher's tried temper. In one heavy perfunctory motion she drops her feet to the scuffed and ever-dirty classroom linoleum, looking semi-starkly at her instructor all the while. _True, maybe Jordan and she _were_ a little too enwrapped in each other than appropriate for a classroom — desks edged in closer to one another, limbs entangled with one another, eyes on each other more than on the board _— but still she resents greatly being called out in such a manner.

Jordan would have taken issue with and bristled at the censure, but it was said without malice, if with impatience, and Angela's only reaction was to drop her legs from is lap, so he lets it go. And wonders what has changed that he would find himself in the position of sitting in class with his girlfriend's clothed legs flung casually across his own. Less than a year before he never would have been seen doing such a thing. From his start with girls he has never been big on public displays of any kind. _And something like this?_ He never before would have felt so comfortable with this casual closeness, in public, well lit, while he himself's not at all _lit. _But there he is. And he isn't especially angry at himself for it either. He can't exactly look back and point to what lead to these changes — going to class, keeping a girlfriend, and all the other things he _is_ or is _not_ doing — but he can see them in himself if he ever pauses to look.

...

After class Angela walks with Jordan to the west exit where he'll walk out the door, take the steps two at a time, take long indifferent strides to the sports fields, duck under the field bleachers, meeting up with any buddies also at their spot, and light up. But before he does, Jordan, without looking, reaches back behind him as he passes through the heavy door and pulls her with him. Once outside he, in one quick twist of his wrist and instinctual lean, has her backed up against the brick wall, and he's leaning into her (his hands at either side of her head, his one knee surreptitiously inserted between her thighs), hovering over her in a sudden cloud of desire and frustration. It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly Angela doesn't have time to think about all that's weighing on her and all the reasons she has to be sad or locked up in her own head, and instead she giggles and smiles up at him with those large bright eyes of hers, and there, so close to her, his lips just lingering over hers, he studies her intensely, and sees in her face not the girl who's taken too much on trying to keep her fragmented family together, but the girl who last year he couldn't walk away from — the girl who keeps him interested, and from feeling too hardened and untethered. His breathing slows as he concentrates on her flushed waiting lips and her fluttering blue eyes. He wants her. Jordan wants her in _every_ way, but right now he wants her mouth on his, her tongue tangled with his own, her hands on him, clutching at him like she does sometimes, clutching at him like she won't ever let go. And he kisses her. Deeply. And with force. Till she— can't— catch— her breath.

She doesn't kiss him like this in her house. Not usually; there there are other things taking precedence in her head and over her emotions, but in the sunlight outside of school, he has her full attention. He can tell — because once again Angela's hips are pressed tightly against his — something that's been happening more often in the recent months, and he knows what it means: Finally Angela, though she may not be ready to acknowledge it herself, is asking for more. Jordan is stirred by this thought, and he thinks right then about taking her home in his car and going to bed with her in the way they still never have... The notion is more than tempting—

_Brrrrrrriiihhhhhhrrr!_

The bell rings. And for the moment the spell is broken; he backs away some. "Keep thinking this," he whispers heavily in her ear. "So hot." Then he breaks away, and leaves to smoke the cigarette that will make him late to his next class, if he even goes at all.

The breathless huskiness of his voice remains in her ears as the warm caress of his breath stays on her skin, and her thoughts are all of him. Of Jordan, and sex, and heat, and passion, and firsts. And the rush and thrill of spontaneity that comes of being absolutely in and of a moment. What her thoughts are not full of is promises, and vows, and words that have or may be broken. To think of home is to think of these things, and to think of them is to doubt, and question, and self-shield; and once that begins it's Jordan she pulls away from, and she does not choose to do so. Not now, while she's feeling so alive, and rightly so young, and not so driven down. Angela's sparked eyes follow after the figure in the russet corduroy jacket and she watches her boyfriend saunter easily toward the bleachers.

She blinks softly. When she thinks of him, of Jordan Catalano, who's faced much worse than she, much more directly, and for much longer, but is still... as easy going, and unhounded as he is, it gives her comfort. She feels better with him around; both safer, and stronger. And her head ushers in thoughts of maybe sometime soon _not_ calling it quits, falling asleep, when next she's in his arms wrapped up in him in bed.


	10. Changes

_**Thanks to everyone who's reading and who waited patiently for these updates (I hope they're not disappointing)! I really truly enjoy hearing from you! (This may be the last update for a while, but again, neither this story nor any of my others are in danger of being abandoned.)**_

* * *

"I think we should do it." Angela's looking at Jordan from across the cracked and aging diner table, watching him bite messily into his burger. There's an earnestness to her words, but beneath that, there's a glint, a tickled spark that's waiting to ignite as she sits, awaiting his reply.

Jordan chews, and swallows; he'd taken her for burgers because he's been in doubt she's been eating much and 'cuz it's something to stretch out the time between the end of school and dropping her home where it's not an especially great place for her to be spending all her time. He hasn't been one for big conversations about anything to do with her family, but he's been making the effort to be hell at distraction. Jordan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Do what?"

She looks at him, unblinking. He kn_ow_s what.

Jordan sets down his burger.

Suddenly he's incredulous. "Why?"

He's been waiting for this, for this next step, but it hasn't happened how he knew it might — with him coming on strong and early, pushing in just the right way, and her yielding because— well, he's not exactly certain why girls yield like that when they do; he'd hope it's because they want to, because they want him, but, he's been coming to get the motivator could be something other than intrinsic desire… But it _didn't_ happen, so he doesn't have to examine the whys and wherefores behind a hypothetical sexual capitulation that never came to fruition. And anyway, it's been months now, coming up close to a year, so now, after this time, all these months, she, and her out-of-context statement, are suspect.

Angela brushes hair back off her face. "What do you mean?"

"I _mean_," he pushes at the base of his glass of water, moving it around in the rings of water surrounding it, "'Why now?'" He blinks before he meets her eyes, "What's changed?"

"Nothing." She shakes her head. "Nothing's changed."

"Just, th_a_t?" he puts it to her, still doubting her word on this. Angela — the _real_ Angela, the non-reactionary Angela — would have made a big thing about coming to this decision, taking this step. She'd never just say it over a Formica tabletop full of fries and condiments and then leave that to be it. _Not_ that he wants to have another of many conversations on the subject. They've talked about it enough. All they've done is talk. He's had enough with waiting.

B_u_t, he's been waiting long enough to get to know the girl he's waiting for, and this isn't her. He doesn't think.

"What?" She looks at him. "Do I need to give you a reason?"

"No..." He's not sure actually.

…

"Think about it," she asks of him as he drives her home. "What's the whole reason I was waiting?"

He steals a glance at her as he drives, then shifts gears and accelerates. "That's for you to know, and for you to say," he remarks lightly. Jordan'll sit through this, he'll let her work it out, but he's not getting invested. He doesn't trust this '_yes_'.

"No," she shakes her head. "Listen," and she shifts her body and resettles herself against the passenger door, "all my life it seemed like people have been telling me that sex is special, it's important, it's something you have to be prepared for." She kind of looks at him for confirmation.

So obliged, Jordan stirs just enough for a nod. And clears his throat. "Yeah..."

"But then it—" she stumbles a little as she works to put word to thought, "that's not true at all." Jordan needlessly changes lanes. "Practically no one in my life is telling me that." She's got his attention; Jordan re-grips the steering wheel. "Rayanne," she lists. "You. _Sharon_. My _pediatrician_. And about everyone else I can think of." Angela tucks back he falling hair, "In f_a_ct," she says with a sliver of an incredulous laugh, like she can't believe she's ended up finding herself in this position, "really the only people actually telling me to wait, to plan, to prepare, are my parents." Her head shakes in sardonic reflection, "_Hmph._ But it's clear that only goes so far with them."

Jordan makes the turn onto her street. "Doesn't mean they were wrong. What they said." He pulls up outside her house and cuts the engine. "It doesn't mean they were wrong."

She looks at him. "You're not seriously playing devil's advocate on this." She studies him through her earnest lashes, "Are you?"

Jordan bites his inner cheek, speaking casually as he does. "I'm not?" He's still trying to keep this shallow, trying to keep from getting too entrenched in a heavy conversation he doesn't trust will lead anywhere but where they've been. In answer Angela shoots him a look. "Look," he gestures as he repositions his weight and slouches back into his seat, "this was a big deal to you. A BIG deal." He glances at her beneath his dark brow, "You saying it's not now?" His clear blue watchful eyes wait on her, wait for her either to come to her senses or to tell him something that will tell him to take her at her word.

The irony's not lost on him, this new reticence of his. Time was Jordan would have been more than satisfied with her word; early on with her, and maybe for even longer than he probably should admit, he really wouldn't have minded if there wasn't a lot behind those words — that one word — backing them up. If he'd gotten a '_Yes_' out of her, softly coerced or not, he would have taken it. And been glad for it. Now he has a '_Yes_', a pretty unsolicited one, and he finds himself trying to poke holes in it.

Angela wets her bottom lip to curb her frustration; she hadn't anticipated any resistance. Given past experiences, she hadn't expected _any_ resistance. She looks at him, and evaluates his expression. Then Angela inhales and speaks again, quickly so as not to get caught up, "I'm not." She rubs her eye. "I'm not saying that."

"I'm not either."

She blinks. "Wait—" There's a trace of a smile edging its way into her expression, "Then... what are you saying?"

Jordan's a little bored. Not so much actually bored, but he comes across as such because he's not yet convinced this isn't just another false start, and he's over having these talks until it leads directly to some concrete change in the sand. With a slight sigh he scratches the back of his head and gestures, "Whatever your parents are doing, or not doing, or said to you or didn't say… Look," he starts over, "it's still _you_. _You'd_ be the one doing it. Want to rush it over your parents screwing up?" He cracks his knuckles, "That's messed up."

"You think this is about my parents?"

He looks at her, steadily, unflinchingly, daring her to be honest. "Isn't it."

Angela unclicks her seatbelt, and she holds his eye contact. "You really think we'd be 'rushing it'?"

Jordan in turn looks deadpan at her. "Of course not."

"Do you not think we're ready?" The question is genuine, she's not asking this to be facetious.

"Yes."

"_Huh?_"

He looks at her and emits a small self-deprecating scoff as clarification, "'Yes.'"

"Not like, 'I've been waiting long enough' kind of ready, but _us_? As a _pair _'yes'?" Jordan nods fractionally; he'd understood her, despite the ambiguity of his reply. "Do you think—?"

"We're solid," he affirms, then follows it with a shrug. "As much as we're gonna be."

Hearing this, Angela really stops to fully consider what they're talking about; and then slowly she nods. A faint smile spreads across her face, "I think so too..."

He's biting on his thumbnail when he looks at her, "You're not teasing; are you?" Still his expectations are in check. He won't really believe her till it's said _and_ done.

"Well if you don't want to..." she feigns rejection, all the while letting him in on the joke. "If you've just lost interest..."

"Shut. Up." Jordan, having taken a firm hold of her, instructs her slowly as he draws her face into his and kisses her solidly. There is no more room for talking. He's already spent too much of the day with his mouth not on hers.

They kiss, for some time, fervently, but at some point Angela pulls away and speaks, partially just to herself, as though she were already mid-conversation. "I can't believe they're doing this."

Her 'they' needs no explanation; Jordan loosens his grip on her, dries his lips, and pulls back some distance from her. "They're doing it to each other, not to you." He kisses the bridge of her nose.

Contrarily her head tilts to one side, "What makes you so smart?"

"Did'ya not know?" he smirks. "Th_a_t's why you like me."

"O_h_," she smiles involuntarily. "Thought it was the face," and Angela kisses him.

"_This_?" He poses, and then shakes his head. "_This_ you just tolerate."

"Oh. Right," she deadpans. "I nearly forgot." And Angela flings her arms around his neck, holding herself to him tightly.

"Lucky I reminded you." They kiss again. "Really though," he says, _sounding_ as if speaking in earnest, "you can't just like me for how I look." Angela only laughs, and kisses him again. "'m _serious_."

Surprised, she pulls away once more. A bit incredulous, she looks at him, an expression of bemusement still visible in her countenance. "Jordan—" She stifles a smile. "You do remember that day in the hallway when you suggested that we sleep together? Your reasoning being that if everyone already thought it'd happened, 'What's the big deal'? That _was_ you?"

Jordan's eyes roll, he hadn't exactly calculated that one well. "Yeh."

"_And_," she invites from him some sort of reconciliation between that moment and this, "_so_..."

"Look," his crystalline eyes measure her. "_You_ set these rules. You said _this_—" he gestures at the intangible thing between them "—was some'in' else; and I went along with that. If it's n_o_t, that, anymore, then," he cracks his knuckle again, "it's not. You sure 'bout going back now, an' changing all that up? _Hmph_," he dissolutely half-smiles,_ "_I mean, it's okay," the smile widens a bit, "if you are." Angela bashfully ducks her head, tucking her knowing smile into herself. It's clearly n_o_t a surprise to her he'd be 'okay' with changing the arrangement. But then Jordan looks over at her, there's been a shift in his expression, likes he's not especially excited for her response to what's coming, "'m _I_ treatin' ya like that? Like, 'it doesn't matter'?" He looks at her pointedly, expecting a response.

Her head shakes somberly. "No." His concern on this front is unaccounted for; Angela's a little taken aback. '_It's like the times Neil scolds Danielle and me,_' she thinks. '_You never see it coming. It's like, way more jarring to be called out by Uncle Neil, or, Jordan Catalano, than, say, someone like my mother. Or how my mother _u_sed to be..._'

He's still watching her; for once _he_ wants to be sure of something: "You think I don't care about this? That I don't, ya know, care about you?"

No matter what may be in her head, there's really only one answer she can give: "No..."

"'Cuz, why would you sleep with me if that's what you thought?"

"It's not..."

"_You_," he pushes playfully back on her forehead with two fingers, "think 'cuz I've been casual b'fore that's all I am."

"No..."

"Th_a_t's. Not. Nice." He's razzing her a bit, but there's a small element of truth in it. "You think you're the only one with one of those?" This time he shoves at her chest, at her heart.

Angela swallows a smile, and blinks. _How did they get to this conversation? _"No..."


End file.
